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This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe
(www.thenation.com)
this post was submitted on 07 Nov 2024
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Yeah, no. Let's hold the media accountable. For treating Trump like a serious candidate in the first place and giving him all the air time, the jester that he is. For harping on every single thing the Dem candidate did wrong while apologizing and making excuses for Orange Julius at every turn. Going on and on about Biden's age and then never bringing up age again once Biden dropped out of the race. Let's hold the oligarchs accountable for doing their best to stifle free speech, welcoming Russian and GOP astroturfing of the internet, and the last hundred years of slowly breaking down our democracy so they can have more money when they already have so much more than enough. No it's all the Dems fault 🙄
You seem to be suggesting that the American public are fools who were tricked, rather than the Democratic party being genuinely unpopular.
The Democrats were in power for 4 years and accomplished almost nothing while the lives of ordinary people got worse. They never forgave student loads, they didn't legalize weed, the 2k stimulus check was cut to 1.4k, they never raised the minimum wage, they never rolled back abortion bans, they continued putting kids in cages, they backed a genocide, and inflation was worse than it's been in a long time. And this campaign their whole message was "what are you going to do, vote trump?".
The republicans didn't gain any votes this election, the democrats just lost millions.
As much as I don't like the dems, this is too harsh on Biden. Biden inherited a weak economy from Trump, which saw worldwide inflation. That inflation is now back down to normal levels. Biden also repeatedly forgave tranches of student loans, started the process to declassify marijuana, tried to increase minimum wage but was blocked by DINOs, did roll back several abortion bans and managed to constitutionally protect the right to abortion in several states.
Biden wasn't close to perfect. He wasn't hard enough on Netanyahu, opting to express frustrations with him privately rather than through policy, because being pro-Israel is a popular view in the US. And he started claiming victory once inflation was back down, but well before people were compensated for their loss in purchasing power.
Biden was an OK president. Better than Trump anyway. But their election strategy was terrible and they really should have focused on what they could offer the working class rather than focus on what Trump would offer.
IMO most of what was going on with inflation going up and down was because of Jerome Powell anyway, it's not like either Trump or Biden have a problem with him. The only candidate in recent memory to even acknowledge rising wealth inequality as an issue was Bernie Sanders. Resolving the country's financial problems with endless corporate welfare is just the standard bipartisan consensus.
If you try to accomplish things and fail, you by definition didn't accomplish things. He failed to browbeat, negotiate, and ultimately legislate. He was a weak president who failed to use the bully pulpit. There are always obstructions and difficulties- his job was to overcome them. If part of the reason he failed was due to members of his own party, that's more damning, not less. Of his leadership, and the leadership of the DNC.
It's not leading the local softball team, it's leading the moat powerful country in the world. We can and should expect better.
Biden circumvented Congress and violated standing law to fund a genocide. The bare minimum was not aiding Israel in any way, and he did not even entertain that.
Setting aside that Israel's ongoing genocide isn't actually popular, say it was for the sake of argument. That still doesn't mean you support it. You may have to actually do your job as a politician and shape public opinion on an important matter, or even do the right thing despite it potentially harming your career. Again, bare minimum stuff.
The Democratic Party clearly does have a lot of work to do. They lost because over 10 million people stayed home.
But let’s not pretend that the fools who were tricked aren’t a humongous issue. Trump had about the same level of support despite literally everything that happened on every single day between November 2020 and November 2024.
Both things very much can be, and very much are, factors. And maybe it also falls on the democrats to try to reach the tricked fools, but probably not until after they convince the non-trumpers to get off their asses first.